How to Get Recommended by AI: Being Found Isn't Enough

Hi, I'm Kia Kelley. I teach TikTok marketing and I'm here at Social Media Marketing World. So I have loved being a speaker at Social Media Marketing World the last 5 years. My favorite conference because not only do you get to speak or whatever, but you get to learn so much and be connected with all your peers in the social media space. So one of the things I love about Social Media Marketing World is everybody here is intentionally friendly. Like everyone, it doesn't matter how many followers you got, whether you are new or you've been around for a while, everybody is connecting with everyone. Like everybody is just normal and like people want to connect, they wanna talk to you, they wanna just hang, and it just feels like a really safe space for everybody, whether you're new on social media or you've been around for a while. This year for me has been like my absolute favorite because not only could I learn all about social media, but I was able to come in this space and learn about AI and how I can apply it to my business. So if you're thinking about coming to Social Media Marketing World, you definitely should.

Get tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info.

Welcome to the AI Explored podcast, helping you put AI to work. And now, now, now, here's your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the AI Explored podcast, brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers, creators, and business owners who want to know how to put AI to work. Today, we're going to explore how to get recommended by AI. My special guest is an AI marketing strategist who helps small businesses get found and get chosen by AI. Her agency is Houndstooth Media Group. Vivian Wagner, welcome to the show. How you doing today?

I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Well, I'd love to hear a little bit about your story. How did you get into AI?

I got into AI terrified. I, you know, as an agency owner, I was like, holy cats, is this gonna put me outta business? And I, I had a moment of panic while everyone else is like, oh my gosh, this is so exciting. I'm like, I have copywriters I'm gonna have to let go. And that was a little scary.

When was that? At what point did you start down that path? Right when it came out, ChatGPT?

Almost like right when it came out. Like, what was that, like, uh, spring or fall?

November of 20— yeah, November of 2023,

I think.

2, I think, is November 2022 is when ChatGPT first came out. But in the next year is when a lot of people's eyes were open to it.

Yeah, like seeing it and going, okay. And I was really introduced to it in the middle of a conference with a bunch of other business owners. It like a marketing conference, it was for business owners. And there was somebody going, look, I can write a blog post in 30 seconds. I'm like, we write blog posts for our clients, we write copy for websites. And so I had these moments of panic. I was like, I'm gonna have to let the copywriters go. And then the more I sat with it and stewed on it a little bit, I was like, no, I'm pretty sure that this is gonna turn into be a thing where it's garbage in, garbage out. You still have to have the strategy behind what you're producing. You still have to have a human. And so I went back to work the next week and I was like, guys, nobody's losing their jobs, but you are not just copywriters, you are strategists, and we are going to roll with that. And so that calmed them down and it actually proved to be the case. You can't just publish a bunch of AI slop and hope that you're gonna get Google's attention in a good way, right? And so, Everyone around me marketing agency-wise seemed like they were building bots and operational systems and, and all of these AI mousetraps. That's not what we do. And so, as a result of that, I was feeling actually a little bit behind the curve going, how are we gonna build a bot that takes over the service that we were charging a client for and, and providing for a client? That seemed counterintuitive to me. But I love SEO. I've always loved organic search. That has been our through line since we opened our doors back in 2013. And I went, you know what, let's lean into how are people searching differently. And that has made all of the difference. And so now, like, we can confidently say we understand how your consumers, your clients, your customers, how they are using AI to find you and how that search has changed and what we know what businesses need to do to make sure that they're not just found, they're also recommended.

I love that. So tell us a little bit about how you pivoted your services and kind of what it is you're offering now today.

The pivot really came down to like a little bit of a misconception that people had had. We've trained business owners for, I don't know how many years to treat everything like its own channel, your social media channels and your website and Email marketing, Google Business Profile, each thing kind of, we treated it like its own little siloed place in the internet. And I think what has shifted and what this big change is, you have to look at your marketing like an ecosystem. You can't silo anything anymore. The ecosystem needs to be addressed at all points.

Basically what I'm hearing you say is that you just addressed one of the biggest misconceptions, which I love that, but I want to go back to like, what is it you're offering right now? What is that service that you're offering? offering and who are you offering that to today?

The way we work with clients is we love working with small and medium businesses who have basically outgrown their marketing. And the reason they've outgrown their marketing is because their business has evolved and pivoted. Maybe they don't serve the same client base and they don't necessarily recognize that. So, the way we work with those clients is to really help them become visible, become chosen, and really make sure that Who they are, what they do, who they serve is very clear everywhere so that they can attract those particular customers or clients. And it's shocking to me how many people haven't actually done that. And, you know, we hadn't done that for a long time. You don't realize how much your business has changed and the outward appearance has not changed, but internally you've changed. And so you're telling 2 different stories, who you are and, uh, who you have been is still very present, and that creates confusion for Google and AI.

Folks, the reason I brought Vivian on the show is I heard her on another podcast, and generally speaking, I do not cover AI search and discovery on this show because I don't believe many people have figured it out. But the reason why I brought Vivian on is because it's an extremely practical approach that we're going to unlock today that I think is really gonna make a lot of sense to a lot of folks And Vivian does an excellent job communicating this, so pay close attention. Now, Vivian, when people do pay attention to what we're about to talk about today, 'cause we're gonna reveal some really cool stuff, what is waiting for them on the other side? What's the benefit? What's the upside if they apply what we have not yet spoke about?

Okay, so the upside is, I've been saying for like a year or so that AI is the new personal referral. But every day that I roll along and learn more about this and see more of it in action, yes, it is a personal referral, but more and more I'm convinced it's a matchmaker. So when AI has a conversation with somebody and gets to know that person who's using it as an AI platform, and your business is clear about who you are and who you're for, it can match you. It can match that customer with the, the products and services that you provide in a way that just regular marketing and SEO wouldn't necessarily do.

And I think that's very powerful because if we think about the way we work in human communication, a referral is the most powerful thing, right? Anybody who has an agency or consultancy, if someone you trust refers you to someone else, That comes with some weight and authority. And this is now where we're going with AI, because people have been working with ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini for a very long time. And these AI tools have gotten to know the business that that person is in, and they become a trusted kind of partner, if you will, in helping them. And that referral from that AI is more meaningful. Is that right?

Absolutely. And now keep in mind that as— let's take off our business owner hats for a second. Let's put on our consumer hats. We're using Claude or ChatGPT or Perplexity or whatever your AI platform of choice is. We're using it for a variety of things. Like I use ChatGPT for things for work, for our business, but also on occasion I'm like, I'm cooking something. What are the— these are metric measurements. Please give me the American equivalent. You know, you've got all of these things that you're asking it. Mm-hmm. All of these different varied threads, and it is finding out more and more about you as an individual person, and it's cataloging all of that information about you. It's getting to know you really well. Now, if it knows you really well and there's maybe a product or service that you need, and that particular corresponding business that has that product or service is very clear about what they offer, ChatGPT, whatever I'm using, is positioned to say, oh, Vivian, you need this. Here is a company that I think would be a good fit for you. A personal story about this where I bought new products after a months-long conversation with my ChatGPT. Is it okay if I go here with this?

Yeah, sure.

Okay. So, TMI maybe, but I had a bunch of skincare products that I had used for years. Literally years and years, and they worked great for me and I loved them very much. And I felt like I had my skincare routine dialed in until, like a fool, I bought 4 or 5 different, like, Instagram cosmetics. And in the span of a week, I tried them all at once and I basically broke my own face. I had, like, hives. I had, like, red and itchy. And good luck getting into your dermatologist in, like, a 4-month period. I had a problem now. I took the links to all of these products and I took them to ChatGPT and I said, tell me everything that I might possibly be having an allergic reaction to. Give me all of these ingredients. Tell me what if combined they can produce this allergic reaction. And it gave me all of that and it actually walked me through, okay, here's what we're gonna do. And it basically had me just continue everything and then slowly reintroduce certain products and nope, that flared up again. No more of that. This went on over three, four months, and it it had me washing my face with water. Ladies, you know you can't just continue to wash your face with water. So I said, "I'm ready for a new cleanser that will help me," and it put something, put a product directly into the chat for me to purchase, and I immediately poo-pooed it. I scoffed. It look it was ten dollars. I'm used to buying like clean, high-end, whatever, and so that right there was a. deterrent for me, and it looked like CVS generic whatever. I didn't wanna buy it. I argued with ChatGPT and said, mm-mm, I only use good quality products on my skin. This looks like it's full of chemicals. And ChatGPT pushed back and it said, your objective is not to avoid chemicals. Your objective is to avoid irritants. And it put that product back in front of me in the next answer. And I went, okay, I bought it. It arrived at my doorstep. It was great. And so now I still have that ChatGPT thread and I go to it anytime I'm considering purchasing a new product. I'll go, hey, can I try this? And it'll say, nope, you can't. Remember, you can't have essential oils or whatever it is. Can I try this? Yes, you may. Now, the thing that is important to know the most here is I never would've searched for that cleanser. I never would've Googled it. There's no way I, I would've known how to find it. I don't have a known skin condition. I, to this day, don't consider myself having, uh, sensitive skin per se. Instead, I look at it as I, you know, poisoned myself with too many different chemicals all at once. Different than the mindset of, of sensitive skin. So I wouldn't have even known what to Google to ask for this product. But ChatGPT knew me and my situation, and this company was clear enough with its product that it got on the radar. And it wasn't just a referral, 'cause the original referral I resisted. It was a matchmaker, and I loved the product, and now we're married. No, I'm just kidding.

Very cool. All right, let's get into how we actually do this. People listening to this podcast are, have all sorts of different backgrounds. Not everyone has a marketing background. So there, is there anything that we need to be thinking about or considering before we begin the process that we're about to talk about today?

Absolutely. You have to be clear, and I say this all the time ad nauseam. Who are you? What do you do? Who is, who is that for? Who is your ideal customer? Like, who do you not want to be working with? That clarity is absolutely vital because, like, if you're not clear, what does AI have to base its opinion on you about? I'm not articulating it well, but if you can't say who you are and what you stand for, how do you expect to get paired with that right person? And that's a, a problem that a lot of business owners have. At Houndstooth, we, we kind of put it into a, a framework. We call it the Clear Choice Framework. It's real simple.

We're gonna reveal little pieces at a time.

Oh, but, okay.

Let me ask you this question, especially for those marketers that are listening. Search engine optimization is a phrase that's been around for a long time. And do these concepts matter still?

100%. SEO is not a trend. It's not something that you can take it or leave it. It doesn't become less important because somebody else has come up with new acronyms, AEO, AIO, GEO, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, whatever. SEO is still the foundational thing that matters so much because AI is not pulling answers out of thin air. It's also relying on good SEO to initially find some of the information that it needs. So SEO is not an option, it's a foundation.

So tell everybody a little bit about what some of those basic principles are if they just don't understand it.

Yeah, again, Google needs to know those 3 things about you, right? And there's ways that you can add to your website To make sure that Google understands you. Who are you? What do you do? And who are you for? Those 3, at its very core, that is what SEO is. Those 3 questions answered. Are there a lot of technical ways to help answer those questions? Absolutely. But at its core, SEO is actually common sense. It's not rocket science. It's common sense. Is your content clear? About what you do and who it's for. Honestly, that's it.

Okay, cool. Let's talk a little bit about this positioning, because obviously what we're really talking about here is, is developing some positioning language. And it's very possible that everyone who's listening can clearly say who they are, what they do, and who they're for. But are they doing it in a way that AI can process it right? So let's get into that a little bit.

Yeah, and you know, you, you would think that that's easy, that define who you are. You'd think it's easy, you'd think it comes naturally, but it doesn't. And you have to put on your thinking cap sometimes to really like go, okay, what do I want to be known for? Where am I going to plant my stake in the ground as far as who is my customer and the services I provide? That is thinking cap conversations that you need to have with yourself, with your leadership team, with, you know, whoever's helping to make some decisions there for your business. That's important stuff. And that's the first thing you need to be doing is define who you are.

Do you have any tips on how to go about doing this, by the way?

I do. Uh, we did this for ourselves several months ago because your business evolves, it matures, um, maybe pivots. Maybe you don't work with clients the same way anymore. Maybe you sell something different than you did when you got started. We created a brand positioning statement for ourselves, and it was basically really drilling down and who do we wanna work with? How do we want to make a difference in the world? Who are we here to help? And once we had that brand positioning statement, which helped quite a bit, but we went to AI with it. We said, this is what we think we know about ourselves. What are we missing? Can you please interview us and ask us other things we should be considering as we decide how we're going to position ourselves in the market? How are we going to say what we stand for? How are we going to quietly say who we don't work with? Right? All of these things. And so we used AI to interview us to create our own brand positioning statement, because we might think that we know who we are. But you, you're in the box. You can't see the label from inside the box. Sometimes you need that fresh set of eyes. And so you need to be able to develop who you are now as a business and where you're going. And sometimes everything else that's left over is where you've been, and it's kind of stagnant.

Do you have an example of the, of one that you've developed for yourself that you could possibly read to us, or maybe you know it by heart?

I don't know it by heart, but I can tell you the questions that we asked We said, we, you have to start with, and, and I would start with, who are your favorite customers and clients? Who are the people who, you know, 80% of the work that you do, you just love it and it's with those people? If you're a service-based business, what is 80% of the product that you sell? If you're, you know, a, a product-based business, start looking at it that way. And when you ask Okay, how do I get more of these clients? We want to work with them. Why? What is our special sauce? Why are we different from our competitors? And let AI help bring that out of you. It's in you. You just might not know how to articulate it well. And depending on which platform you're using, some people love Claude for this. It is going to ask you things about your business, and at the end of it, you should have Who we're for, who we don't work with, what we want to be known for, how we work with our customers, and then something about your tone of voice and brand personality. And it's, it's not simple. I mean, it is simple. It's not War and Peace. You don't need this big, long mission statement. And, and, you know, you need a value proposition. What do you bring to the table? And then once you have that, it's a little bit of a Bible-like document that you should be hanging onto, and it should be the lens through which you look at everything else that you've got going on. Is it in alignment with your positioning statement?

I've had multiple guests on the Social Media Marketing Podcast, folks, if you wanna go back and look through the archives on positioning. But one of the things that I have learned, and I've been doing specifically with our conference, Social Media Marketing World, and AI business world, but mostly social media marketing world, is position it for small businesses. So originally we were just positioning for all marketers of any size because we've honestly had people from all different kinds of walks— solo consultants, agency owners, marketers working inside of businesses small and big, the big brands, the little brands, professors, universities— all, they've all been there. Okay, so I've intentionally kept it generic. But I've started to realize, okay, who are we really for? And as a company, we know who we are really for. We're for the small guys. Okay? And when I say small, I mean really small. You know, I'm talking about like 10 employees or less. That's like our core target audience of people that listen to our show. And by using the words in the positioning and the copy, we started focusing more on small businesses. Uh, consultants, agencies, uh, marketers working inside of small businesses. These kinds of words matter to humans, but I think they also matter to AI. And what do you wanna say to people that are like, well, we service everyone, you know, because they're never gonna get recommended, right?

You don't service everyone. You don't. I, I had a med spa owner who told me that her ideal client was anyone with skin. No, it's not. It's not. We have a client who has aging in place senior care, and he said his ideal client wants 20 to 30 hours of help a week. That's a service requirement. That's not a person. Their ideal client, in my opinion, is the adult child of that aging parent who is lying awake at night worrying about mom. And mom doesn't wanna go into a home, but she, ah, is a mom showing sign of dementia? Like, that is your person. That is who needs you and your services. So don't confuse a service requirement with the pain point and problem that your ideal client and customer actually has. And that's how it can circle back to AI is, do you think that that adult child who's worried about mom has not had some conversations with AI? Can you talk to me about original, like originating signs of dementia? My mom just did this. What do you think I should do? Like, those are ongoing conversations that people are already having. That's the new search behavior right there in a nutshell. And so when you're clear on your website, you have this opportunity to get matched with the people who need you.

Hi, my name is Rachel Milliken. This is my 3rd year at Social Media Marketing World, and there is a very distinct reason why I keep coming back. And that's because of the amazing speakers that are here. Everyone talks about networking and the connections, and honestly, it's fantastic. But the speakers, they know what they're talking about. And even if you think you know everything about AI, I promise you don't. You're going to learn something new here, just like I did. I keep telling my clients I will never stop learning, and that's because I come to Social Media Marketing World.

Get tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info. So up to this point, Here's what we know. We're working on some sort of a positioning statement. Even if we think we have one, we're going to go to AI, we're going to have it interview us, and we're going to have it— we're going to have it ask us questions. Who are you? And we're going to try to answer that through the lens of the ideal person that we really want to be in front of, right? Because we all take on personas, right, for different aspects of our life. And we want to answer that question there. And then who are you for? We might even want to start with who are you for? Because that'll frame your questions into who are you? So if you say who you're for, Like in my case, we are for small business marketers who are concerned that they are going to be disintermediated by AI, right? And they want to learn how to adopt and embrace it rather than be replaced by it, right? These are some of the fears and concerns. And then, you know, you talk about some of that stuff, you interact with AI, you talk about what do you do. And by the way, AI might already know some of this stuff if you've used it to write a lot of copywriting for you. You could ask it to try to answer these questions, but you're going to interact with it. You're going to come back with a bunch of stuff, you're gonna look at it and you're gonna say, okay, I think this is pretty good. Now what do we do with it? What's the next thing? Once, once we feel like we've got a pretty good positioning down with AI, now what do we do?

Absolutely. Because everything you just described too, by the way, it's not a process. You're not gonna say, here's my, my stuff, ask me a question, and it's gonna spit out this brand positioning statement. You're actually gonna be working through all of this, through this interview process. And when you're done, you're gonna be like, yeah. That's who we are. This is who we serve, right? So you've now done the first step, which is define. The second step is diagnose. So if you have now got your brand positioning statement and you say this is who you are, the next step is to take it to AI and say, this is who we say we are. This is our current website. Show me the gaps, right? So if I say, I am healthy and I am fit and I am strong and athletic and I always make good nutritional choices. That is me. If I say that, but you look through my living room window and I'm on the couch in sweatpants and I'm covered in Cheeto dust, I have a misalignment.

Does this mean we could take this to our social media and our website? Because obviously this—

You can take it to—

Yep.

Both.

Keep going.

Exactly, 'cause remember, it's an ecosystem. This isn't just about your website. So the define who you are and who you wanna be and like, let's embrace that, then when we're looking at diagnose, am I showing up as that person, as that business on my social media and on my website, in my email market? Like all of the places where you're touching the internet, are you telling that story? Because if you're not, that's where the work starts to, you know, that clearly needs to happen, right? And so after we define it, Diagnose it. The next step is align.

Now, before we do any alignment stuff, let's just talk about any tips you have on how to ask AI to properly diagnose this, because obviously, you know, anything, any advice here?

Seriously, it is as simple as, here's my positioning statement, here's my website, tell me the gaps. Okay, let's talk more about those gaps. What is missing? Why is this a gap? You know, a lot of times you'll see something that says, well, This is an SEO problem because when I arrive on your homepage, it'll say something like, celebrating 25 years of business, instead of what you actually do and who you're for. Like, what, in a single sentence, 70 characters or less, does your business do?

Yeah, and you could still say, you could still say deeper into the copy, since 2000-whatever, right? Since 2001. You could still get that accomplished so that it knows you're not a fly-by-night organization. Okay, so once you're having it diagnosed, it's going to come back with a whole bunch of stuff. What do we do with that?

Start somewhere. Start going, what is the biggest framing miss that I have? Some companies will be like, oh my God, we don't even offer this service anymore. I didn't realize it was still on our website. All right, take it down according to good SEO. Like, don't just delete it. You're going to get 404 errors on your website. Redirect it. Refresh that page, explain yourself. So when you start seeing the, the, the misalignments, services you no longer provide, customers you no longer work with, that helps you figure out what I need to start working on first. And for most people, it is your website.

Okay, so the first part of this process was this define, which is where we're developing this positioning statement. Who are we for? Who are we? What do we do? What do we want to be known for? All that stuff. The second part is the diagnosis. AI is helping you do this as well. And the diagnosis is giving that positioning statement that you work so hard on to AI and having it look at your website and eventually other places like maybe your YouTube channel or your Instagram account or whatever. And it's going to come back with a list of things. Now, the third step You had a name for it. What was it?

Align.

Are we now getting into the align stage?

Yeah. So the align is where you're changing that copy. Like, diagnose tells you what's wrong and what you need to fix. Align is the actual process of fixing it. So if you're—

Real quick, before we get into align, how important is wrestling with AI to come up with the right words and language? Should we trust it or Does certain kinds of words and phrases matter? Because again, like you have this background with search optimization that maybe we're not asking it to take that lens. So just give us— and I have a background in copywriting, so I'm very curious about like, I would imagine before you make any updates, there has to be some sort of wrestling with AI to come up with new phrases that are going to be simple words that are going to be used in place of the old words, right?

Yeah, but it's less words than concepts. Make sure your concepts are clear. Clarity, clarity, clarity. Is your website clear? It is not important to be the loudest voice in the room. It is important to be the most clear voice in the room. So that should absolutely inform your, your copy. Although I am still of the opinion that keywords matter. So like, if you're doing keyword research, That's a great way to see what are people searching for still, because Google hasn't gone away. People still type in, you know, certain keywords and inquiries into Google. It's become more and more conversational. Yes. But there's still chunks of keywords that you can leverage. And if you don't know what your ideal customer is searching for, it's time to do that research. And even if you think you do know what they're searching for, it's often surprising that they're not using the words you think that they are. Like, I've got another quick example story of this. That's okay.

Yeah. And also be sure to tell us what tools we can use for this too.

Oh, absolutely. All right. So there's lots of them out there. Ahrefs. Um, I like Semrush, uh, SEMrush. We had a client who, uh, she's a psychologist and she took her entire practice online and we were working to get her a new website, all of the copy for it. We were doing keyword research because obviously we would like to be able to leverage what her ideal customer client is already searching for, for this new telehealth service that she's providing. And she said, I treat depression therapy. Well, when you're looking for these keywords as an opportunity, you, you want lots of monthly search volume— how many people a month are looking for this— and you want low competition, low supply from competitor websites, right? And so like, that's the yay, high demand, low supply. The one with the supply wins the internet. We always like those situations. It's not the end-all be-all anymore that it used to be, but it still helps inform what you're saying online. But for this client, unfortunately, apparently everybody is depressed. Anything with the word depression, depressed, depressive therapy, it was a saturated market. High demand, also high supply. Nobody wins. But through the course of looking for these keywords for her, we detected a pattern Of tens of thousands of monthly searches for people asking for help with their pornography addiction. And that was shocking and eye-opening. But if you think about it, it's also absolute common sense. People search for their symptoms. They search for their pain in this situation. And so we can chicken and egg this conversation all we want. Are you depressed because you're looking at porn, or are you looking at porn because you're depressed? Either way, here's an opportunity for our client to come in and interrupt that cycle. And we asked her, like, do you treat this? Uh, yeah. Okay, great. Let's run with that. It opened up a new vertical. She specializes in it, and there's a dedicated page for it on her website. Are we keyword stuffing everything in there? No, but we saw there's enough search demand for that that we better pay attention to it through that AI lens. And make sure it's clear she's an authority and a credible expert in this area. And so keywords can still help inform what you should be saying on your website and where there's an opportunity that you can leverage. I'm not saying be a keyword nerd.

No, no, I love this across multiple dimensions because when a lot of people listening work in business niches that are very competitive, And some have super narrow niches. And the ones that have narrow niches already have an advantage because there's always been this phrase, the riches are in the niches. And it's because we've known for a long time that the more specific you are, like, for example, Social Media Marketing World is not just any conference. It's about social media, right? AI Business World, which is our subconference, is very specific for AI and business. So the idea is the more narrow you get, the less competition you have. And then if that messaging is clear, especially if you offer any kind of service that is not geographically restricted, like for example, in this case of your client, telehealth could be anywhere within a reasonable time zone shift. And now all of a sudden you become recommended because you're differentiating yourself. And this is the part of the discussion that a lot of people do not understand. Which, you know, so if they were to go to SEMrush, SEMrush, what exactly would they be looking for? Just give people a couple tips on what to look for when keyword searching.

So like, put in a general concept, just like, you know, don't put in a single word, but, you know, one or two words of what you're looking for, and it will offer up thousands of keywords that have a rating associated with them. It will tell you how many people on average there's a monthly search. There will be a degree of difficulty. You know, high demand, low supply. We want the low supply. And those those are actually color coded. They're very handy that way. And so you have these metrics that you can decide whether or not it's a keyword that you can leverage and expand on that opportunity. But it will also tell you a lot more information about it if you want to dig deeper. How deep is this search? What is the intent of the person using this? So is it just informational? Just interested, or is it commercial? Is it— do they want to make a purchase? Are they looking to do something that's transactional? So you, you're able to really filter these quite a bit if you want to. We use it more and more just to see, okay, in general, what are people asking about? And it could be argued, well, you can see what you're ranking for, you know, on your own website. You can also use Google Search Console and see, you know, what search queries are Turning up your website. That's great. I always like to go though and see what are people looking for. To me, it's the difference between, oh my gosh, it's 5 o'clock, I'm hungry, what's in the fridge? I got a can of Coke and a hard-boiled egg and a soy sauce packet. That's dinner? I can eat those things, but it won't really be good. What would happen if I went to the grocery store and bought the ingredients for the meal I actually want to make? And so that's kind of the difference, if that makes sense.

Yeah, totally. Okay. So, and it sounds like you're about to cook some sort of Asian dish there. Just, just food for thoughts. So we've got this diagnose process that we've been digging in on. And again, we've got this positioning. We're asking AI to help us. Maybe we're using third-party tools like SEMrush to kind of do a little bit of analysis to see, okay, maybe I should dig in on this one particular audience and create some content. So now we're in this align phase. We've got all this information. Help us understand what we do with it in the align phase.

If you're in that align phase, the first thing to be doing is check all of your, like, static important services pages. Are, are they telling the story that you want to say, or are you, like, still Cheeto dust with your services pages? Make sure that those are all dialed in, right? That's super, super important. And then once you realize Okay, I've made these pivots. I need to project this persona for our business out there in the world so that you know we're putting the stake in the ground. This is who we serve. Start creating blog content that helps to promote that. Blogging is not dead. Blogging is one of the best ways to continue to give AI more information about who you are, what you do, and who you serve. You can't constantly be adding. Static services pages. You can just do so much with that. But ongoing blog content— you're recent, you're engaged, you are a subject matter expert— those things are all very important. And credibility is important here too. And so like when we used to do blog posts for our clients, we would be like, written by, you know, Acme Shop or whatever the business was, because we're, you know, ghostwriting at that We don't do that anymore. We have the owner of the business or, you know, important strategic members of that company. They have an author box. They have a little bio about them. They are subject matter experts who are writing this important blog content. And so we've added a layer of credibility because authority gets you noticed, credibility gets you trusted. So that author box, Lets us create a little byline about whoever's doing the writing. And you don't have to do the writing. You can still hire an outfit like us or use your in-house people. You just need to be able to stand behind the content. So you want that credibility. You have your little author box, and I highly recommend have a page that your author box leads to that talks about you, your number of years in business, your credentials, the schooling you've had, the experience you've had. Organizations that you belong to, all of that. Like, this is the place to toot your own horn. Have like a little standalone page just about you. You don't have to put it in the top nav bar if you don't want to. AI will still find it. But that adds subject matter expertise, boom, with a layer of credibility on top of it. And that's how you start to align who you say you are and who you're becoming with what the internet sees and processes.

As we're updating our homepage or our product pages, any tips on what we can add in there that will get kind of vacuumed up by the AI?

So title tags are one of the things that the little Google spiders and AI take its cues from to understand what the page is about. It is not actually on your page. Anybody who has multiple tabs open on their browser right now can go, oh, okay, I see That's what the title is, right? But it tells up in the top of the bar, all of those tabs, that's a title. And then if you are searching for something in Google, all of the blue writing, that's a title. And so you have maximum character of 70, but the sweet spot's between 50 and 60. Use them wisely. Use them strategically. This is a great way, like if you're location-based, put in your location, not at the front, but at the, at the end of that 60 characters. This is your opportunity to tell those machines who you are and what you do. It's not necessarily who you're for yet, but this is like the bare bones. And then another thing that you should be looking at are the headings on your individual pages. So anyone who's ever had to turn in an outline for their English teacher back in the day, you had to give the outline of what's the paper about, what are the sections I'm going to be talking about, and, you know, then you have bullet points you're supposed to fill in. I had teachers that wouldn't let me write the essay until the outline was approved, and that was a step that always bugged me. And it's also a step that a lot of business owners will skip. So your H1, your heading on each page, needs to be something that has some meaty goodness in it. We, we talked about earlier, don't have your H1 be celebrating 25 years in business. That doesn't tell us anything. Are you a dog groomer or are you a wedding venue? We don't know which. So instead, say what you do and who you're for. It's fine to lead with impact here. Also, you can put keywords in it if they fit. But, and 2 years ago, my, my recommendation would have been to make sure you do that. It's changed. So have an H1 that's compelling, that tells the machines more about you and your business. But certainly don't leave it blank and don't have it be something that's just not helpful. 25 years in business speaks to your credibility, but it does not speak to what you do for people.

Talk to me about, uh, Google Business Profiles, just because this is something we talked about in prep and I think it'd be worthy to talk about a little bit here.

Yeah, so Google Business Profiles are one of the most important things you can be doing for your AI visibility and getting recommended right now. We as an agency that's virtual didn't have one for a long time because you could not get a Google Business Profile if you didn't have a physical address, and there was a ton of hoops that you had to jump through. And I'm like, ah, we're virtual anyways, I don't care about this. I think that probably changed during the pandemic when everyone brought everything like remote and online, but now it's one of the first places that AI goes when it's looking for information about a business because considers it a verified source. So have your Google Business Profile set up and fully optimized. And fully optimized means describe your business, pick a category that makes sense for your business— and there's a ton of categories, pick the one that makes the most sense— and if it lets you, have some secondary categories. But make sure your primary category that you're choosing reflects who you're trying to work with. Have your business hours if if that's appropriate, your address, a phone number, have a link back to your website. All of that is standard information that should be there. But on top of that, you can list your products and services. There's categories for that. And, and you can actually have images of your products and services there within your Google Business Profile. You can treat it like a little mini social media platform. So you can have these little tiny billboards of sales that are coming up and behind the scenes or a video or a client testimonial. You can post almost like it's social media. And so there's lots of businesses who are not taking advantage of that. But in my opinion, one of the most important things has to do with reviews. So we've talked about, you know, the define who you are, diagnose your problem, align This is the part that is the prove it. So we want reviews. Reviews are very important. If you're not constantly asking your customers and clients for reviews, make that a regular part of your habit. Consistently ask, because if you don't ask, the answer's always no. But continue to ask for these reviews. And here's the most important part. When you get a review, you need to respond to it. And when you respond to it, you're not responding to the person who left the review. You are responding to all of the people who are going to come behind them and make a buying decision based on what you wrote. So there's that. Based on what you wrote, you're also taking an opportunity to give AI platforms more information about you. So something I see all the time, somebody will leave this lovely, But rather vague review for a client or a customer or some business that we're working with. And the business owner comes back with, thanks for the 5-star review. It was a joy to work with you. That could stand alone and be applied to any business anywhere, right? So here's the opportunity. Number one, don't open with thanks for the review. Save that for later. That's not the lead. Let's not worry about that. Celebrate their win. You had a great If you're a bridal shop, I found my dream dress and, and Kaylee was great. Okay, thanks for the review. No, we're so glad that we helped you find the perfect wedding dress for your big day. Kaylee loves working with brides who want long sleeves. I don't— Something that helps reinforce the services or products that you have. So affirm their win, affirm your services and products that got it for them, then reiterate that that's part of your business philosophy and how you love to work with clients, and then thank them. So it's formulaic. And so every single time you get a review, you have this opportunity to strategically tell AI more about you. And also, believe it or not, when you get negative reviews, the formula still stands because a lot of us have made business decisions based on how a proprietor responds to a negative review. It's very interesting.

Vivian Wagner, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. If people want to connect with you on the socials, uh, what's your preferred platform? And if they're interested in possibly working with you, where do you want to send them?

You can find me on LinkedIn at Vivian Wagner. Our Instagram is Houndstooth Media Group. And if you'd like to get more information, you can find us at houndstoothmediagroup/sme.

Awesome. Vivian, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today.

My pleasure.

Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over at socialmediaexaminer.com/a128. Be sure to follow this show on your favorite podcasting app. If you've been a listener for a little while, we would love a review. Do check out my other show, The Social Media Marketing Podcast. This brings us to the end of the AI Explored Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may AI help you become more successful.

The AI Explored Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.

One more thing. We just announced the first speakers for AI Business World 2027. Dedicated AI sessions, personally recruited speakers, pitch-free training designed for implementation, and virtual tickets cover both AI Business World and Social Media Marketing World. See the lineup at aibusinessworld.live.